BUDA AS SHAM FORU RIKHT (BUDDHA COLLAPSED OUT OF SHAME)

Iran, 2007, 81 minutes, Colour.
Nikbakht Noruz, Abbas Alijome.
Directed by Hana Makhmalbaf.

One of the Iranian cinema’s great qualities is that it can make delightful and powerful films which feature children. This is one of those films.

The central idea is to offer a critique, even a polemic, concerning the attitudes and behaviour of the Taliban in Afghanistan – but via the experiences of children. Set in the locations where the Taliban destroyed the centuries-old large statues of the Buddha in 2002 (which is shown as the film opens), the film shows a contemporary community which lives in the desert caves as well as the town where there is the local market and the school for the boys – with the school for girls across the river.

A little girl, Baktay, is put in charge of the baby by her mother when the mother goes out. Her neighbour, a little boy, Abbas, is rehearsing his alphabet. Baktay wants him to keep quiet for the baby’s sake but she is fascinated by the reading and the stories and wants to go to school. Off she goes to buy a notebook but hasn’t any money. She can’t find her mother, so the sympathetic stall owner suggests she gets some eggs from their hen and sell them. The sequence where she tries to sell the eggs is so well observed that we learn a lot about the people, their customs and their attitudes.

Spoiling the plot a little, we can add that she does get a notebook and tries to get into school with Abbas but the cranky head of the school punishes Abbas and gets rid of Baktay, telling her to go across the river to the girls’ school. His (superior) school is only for boys.

The allegory of the Taliban begins when Baktay sets off for the school and encounters a group of young boys whose game is to imitate the Taliban. Baktay becomes a target as they act out all the harsh attitudes of the Taliban towards women with more than a touch of menace and violence, the use of make-up, covering their hair, not going to school. Poor Abbas is then attacked as an American spy and they give him the treatment. Meanwhile, planes and helicopters fly overhead.

As we see the children acting out what is happening with the Taliban and the people, the message is very strong.

When she made this film, Hana Makhmalbaf was turning 18. She had made the documentary, Joy of Madness, about her sister Samira’s filming of At Five in the Afternoon, when she was 14, inheriting the love of film and film-making from her father, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and her mother, Marzieh Makhmalbaf, who wrote the screenplay for this film.

1.The work of Hana Makhmalbaf? Her age at making this film? The family support for her films? Her mother writing the screenplay?

2.The Afghan setting, the location where the statues of Buddha were destroyed by the Taliban? The people who live in this area? Peaceful Muslims? Taliban supporters?

3.The locations, the desert, the caves, the town, the school, the river? The atmosphere? The musical score?

4.The focus on Abbas and his family, his practising his alphabet? His skill in reading? The conversations with Baktay? Her urging him to be quiet? Her curiosity about his reading? His reading the story over and over? Its effect on Baktay?

5.Baktay, with the baby, tying the baby’s leg, comforting the baby when it cried? Her concern about the baby getting to sleep? Her mother, her mother going into the town? Her talking with Abbas, listening to his story? Wanting to go to school? The discussions about the notebook? Her decision to go to town, to buy the notebook? Her going to the shop, the costs? The friendly seller? The advice about the eggs? Coming home, getting the four eggs? Going to town, wandering the town, trying to sell her eggs, the range of people in the market, the sales, the people passing through? Nobody buying the eggs? Her being bumped and two broken? Her going to the man who wanted bread, going to the woman baking, exchanging the eggs for the bread? Getting the money? Going back, buying the notebook? Her going home, with Abbas, their going to school? Her being refused entry into the school? Abbas and his being criticised by the teacher? Her being told to go to the girls’ school? Going on her way, the encounter with the group of boys, their imitating the Taliban, her being the victim? The deadly games? Her being insulted, the grave being dug, her being put in the hole? Their wanting her to play dead? Tearing up her notebook, criticising her mother for the lipstick? Her head being covered? Her being taken up into the cave? Abbas passing by, the continuing of the game, his being an American? His urging Baktay to play dead?

6.The effect of the game on Baktay? Her tears? Wanting to go home?

7.Abbas, the criticism of the teacher, the punishment of standing on one leg? His being thrown out? In the games, covered with mud, in the hole? The ridicule of the boys? His being made to be an American and the hostility towards him? The planes and helicopters flying over?

8.The picture of the Taliban via the children playing games? The fundamentalist attitudes, the anti-American attitudes? The severity with women, hiding themselves, no makeup, the inability to go to school?

9.The film’s criticism of Taliban attitudes via the children? An effective allegory for the critique?